Friday, 21 December 2012

Mayans, Witches, and the Sunday Papers

Ancient Britain. 90% less great works of masonry, 30% perkier tits.

We'd still choose the tits.

The
world ended today, probably, or at least that’s the internet gossip as a
thousand kittens can’t spell the jokes that have flowed. Across the country,
probably even a chunk of the world (though obviously not those bits where the
world might very well end any moment) a lot of people are feeling rightfully
smug because an ancient civilisation might, or might not, have got a prediction
wrong. Those ancient people, eh? What a bunch of dicks. I have to assume that’s
the case because I’ve not actually looked into the source of it all. I don’t
have to; the internet is being superior for me.

It’s worth pointing out that I
rather appreciate modern life. The strident advances in medicine get my support
every time. The ‘net is a wonder that would have been pure fantasy only a few
years ago – or at least to me, because I wasn’t born tech savvy and so admit
that I never actually knew it was coming years before it did. The spread of
information, the potential for imagination and creativity that needs an outlet
has one, and it certainly beats the old days when in order for people to be
hateful and awful about absolutely anything then even a megaphone in the back
garden at 3am didn’t quite cut it.

I lived for several years near
Stonehenge. On the bus people would be disappointed when they came close to it.
It did not impress them, being stones, in a field, and without any form of
interaction other than being able to look at them. They impressed me. Not
because they are a mystical relic of some matriarchal warrior society but like
a festival and with adequate birth control (that never existed, sorry
witch-fetishists). Nor because they were raised by aliens, because... fuck
aliens. No, because, well, you do it. When the best tools you have for shaping
rocks are other rocks and the best way of moving rocks is with logs it all took
some doing. They did not have the wheel. You would not have had the wheel either.
We might have been the ones to push the bloody thing. Mostly we would have died
horribly or lived with constant toothache. The past would have been a bit shit.

But we can respect it. How were the
pyramids raised? By very clever engineers and skilled artisans. I couldn’t do
it. And hey, I can light a fire, I can even hunt – albeit rabbits. I’ve got a
country-boy’s eyesight in the dark and since I don’t stalk anybody that’s only
of any real use when I have to walk home from nearby-town in the dark where
there are no streetlights. Which is always. And I own a torch. A manly Lenser.
So hurray for the modern world, truly!

So the world did not end. And since
I haven’t actually looked it all up I don’t know if it was ever supposed to.
But don’t let that get in the way of an easy dig at silly people that were good
with stone. At least they had coffee and chocolate, so presumably somewhere
nice to sit wondering when someone was going to get around to inventing the
newspapers.

About Me

I write because as a fine author recently said, we have to. I write for work, each day - when I put in as best I can a working day for a narrative PBeM. That's been me for nearly fifteen years. I write an hour on other stuff for myself and typically just playing around - but like drawing, it relaxes me. And all this nowadays in bits, spits and biscuit crumbs what with the shining light of my better-half working and I then with the children around that. And I'm the better for it, even if work to be fair suffers a little for my refreshed sanity.
Now I also Blog because I've been told time and again that one needs a web presence, and I do this when the kids are down for the night and I in the next room wait to make sure.
And we love you.